A Nation’s Death

If one look solely on the surface of GDP, “China” perhaps is still “very strong”, but in terms of soul, spirit and live, those who see things clearly all knew China has already died.

Has China died? There’s a definition “propriety, righteousness ,integrity and honour are the four social bonds of a nation. If these virtues are not practiced, the nation is bound to fall (ancient philosophy by Philosopher Kuan)*”. If we look at our neighbourhood country, can we see “propriety, righteousness, integrity and honour” amongst the government, the public, and business environment? If we cannot see these virtues, this country is dead.

The only difference between the death of a human being and a country is when a person is dead, a death certificate will be issued by forensic pathologist, but a country is dead, the United Nation would never issue a death certificate. Nor would the United States, if that matters, because there is a huge population still in the country. They eat, they buy clothes and they shop a lot, presenting the US and Europe tremendous “business opportunities”. To big corporates including Bowing, Mercedes, LV and Chanel, there is no such thing called country or nation, there is only market. Even if a nation is dead, as long as the market is still alive meaning it supplies plenty of cash, that’s fine by them.

This is why the West began to stop commenting about China’s “human rights problems”. A country has already died but its market continues to grow, the Western world finally understands: as long as you are willing to continue the discussion about trade barrier and opening up of market, we will not mention your human rights issue. Strictly speaking, there are 1.4 billion of consumers and cattle. How about human? Technically, not a single one. Things get a lot easier without any human beings involved, as Western world’s technical terminologies apply on China issues: you can transcend the pre-existing mindset and change the mentality framework in order to complete a paradigm-shift in between the commercial profits and civilisation.

In recent years, I have been telling my Western friends “give up on China”, but at the same time “engage China, strictly for money”. Such analogy reaches their minds. I did not have to explain to them the four virtues, and I also understand that original Chinese culture, most Westerns can never fully understand. For example, during the early years of Republic of China (not the PRC, but ROC), even the triads in the “then China” had elegant and graceful names, for example Ying Guixin (Ying Cassia-Scent), way more superior to those names in modern China’s names Li Dajun (Li Big-Solider) and Li Shaobing (Li Junior-Officer). This is only the most superficial explanation. Coupling with the lost of “four virtues”, it is an undeniable fact that a nation has died.

A nation has died, but no need to be emotional. All we have to do is to find safety from the US, Canada, Britain, etc. there is no loss. Ngai Hong (famous author in Hong Kong) has figured out long time ago. Hence when I said to him the other day that a nation can die, we both laughed.

2 responses to “A Nation’s Death”

Why has China died? I think it died in stages. There was terrible corruption in the 20th century by whoever was in power. The Japanese invasion and then the Civil War further eroded the values and traditions of China. Then Communism launched an all out war against traditional Chinese values and the Cultural Revolution destroyed whatever was left. This shambles was replaced by unbridled capitalism. At every turn, China was been under siege, and mostly by its own leaders. I doubt when so much has been lost it can be regained. Maybe the question becomes, “Where does China go from here?” Something new must be created that is positive to replace all of the positives that have been destroyed. In a one party totalitarian political system it is hard to see this happening, especially when those in power will do whatever is needed to retain and extend that power.